


Keep Coming Back

by iksnilits



Category: One Direction (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Crack, Fluff, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-07-20
Updated: 2014-07-20
Packaged: 2018-02-09 15:37:01
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,781
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1988364
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/iksnilits/pseuds/iksnilits
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Liam's pretty sure this dog is messing with him. Zayn's the cute laundromat guy whose dog keeps showing up in Liam's house.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Keep Coming Back

**Author's Note:**

> [Here's what I imagined Kit to look like:](http://media-cache-ec0.pinimg.com/736x/7c/a3/96/7ca396a48d860a85d97eb0c3579a025d.jpg)
> 
>  
> 
>  

Liam’s way too tired for this shit. 

“No,” he says, side-eying the dog flopped on his kitchen floor. “Absolutely not. That won’t work on me. First of all, you’re not my dog. Secondly, how did you even get _in_ here, and thirdly, get your own hamburger.”

The dog cocks its head, pants, and drools a little bit on its paws. 

“ _God_ ,” Liam groans. “Why do things like this always happen to _me_?”

Earlier that day, he’d went for a run, not really locking his door behind him. And when he got home, he’d found this (admittedly cute) dog sitting in his kitchen, patiently waiting for him. It looks clean, well-fed, like it’s someone’s pet. No tags though – but it does have a little woven leather collar. Liam snorts. How very indie. 

“Who do you belong to?” he asks, somewhat hopeful that the dog will get up and leave the same way it came in. 

It’s oddly silent, no panting, and Liam looks back to see it chewing on one of his loafers. 

“Fuck you,” he says, no real venom behind it, and gingerly tugs the drool-soaked shoe out of the dog’s mouth. The asshole has the nerve to look a little smug. It’s unnerving, the expressions this dog makes. 

Liam figures he can just make posters tomorrow; it’s too late in the night to call a shelter or put an ad up. So of course the dog just hops up on the bed with him, turns around twice, and collapses in a cloud of dog fur. 

“It’s ninety degrees,” Liam grumps, flinging the covers off and shoving the dog off his legs. “Get off, get off my bed, no one invited you.”

And it snores, louder than anyone Liam’s ever shared a bed with. Louder than Niall, even, and that’s a feat. When Liam meets this mutt’s owner, whoever he is, he’s getting a piece of his mind. 

In the morning, Liam wakes up to a slightly sticky right foot. 

“What – what the hell, did you drool all over me,” he says in disbelief, wiping his foot on the dog. “Nasty. Real nasty, dude.”

He prints up posters on his dinosaur of a printer, grabs a stapler, and realizes that he has no leash. Like hell he’s going to leave it alone in his house, where it would probably eat all his food and shit on the bed. 

It would be just his luck that he has no rope or twine at all in his entire house, great, so he ends up pulling the drawstring out of his favorite pair of sweats and knotting it to the dog’s collar. 

“I hate you so much,” Liam says, tiredly.

+++

At least it doesn’t bark, Liam thinks. It does make these weird warbling noises, though, which is really disconcerting, and people keep giving him weird looks like he’s mistreating it or something.

“You’re the one mistreating me,” Liam says, as they walk down the sidewalk, putting up posters. “I should be sleeping right now. Thanks for nothing.”

They pass a laundromat, and the dog pees on the door. 

“Great,” Liam says. “Wonderful. That was nice. You’ve peed like fourteen times already. How are you still doing that?”

“Kit!” a voice yells behind them, and Liam and the dog both turn, Liam almost tripping over the ratty piece of string attaching him to the dog. 

“What the fuck are you doing with my dog, bro,” the guy says, running up to them. He’s holding a pair of Batman briefs in one hand, a roll of quarters in the other, hair all ruffled, and he’s singlehandedly the most attractive man Liam’s ever seen. 

“What – no, it’s not what it looks like,” Liam stutters, shoving the flyers out toward the guy. “Your dog – Kit – got into my house; I was putting these up, see?” 

The guy looks skeptical, raising one thick eyebrow. “Whatever. Nice leash.” He grabs the string from Liam, long fingers brushing Liam’s wrist. 

“Well. I guess I’ll go take all these down,” Liam says, and the guy nods. 

“Thanks, I guess,” the guy says, with one more suspicious look, and ducks into the laundromat.

“Okay, then,” Liam says, still a little stunned, and goes home to lint-roll everything.

+++

He mostly forgets about the dog and the beautiful boy with his underwear until early one Sunday morning, when he walks down to the kitchen to find the dog sitting on his counter. It’s not exactly a small dog, and it knocks over his toaster with a few excited wags.

“Not again,” Liam groans, and finds a shoelace to tie to its collar. 

“C’mon,” he says, dragging Kit behind him. “We’re going to find your unreasonably attractive owner and yell at him a little. Don’t – put the shoe down.”

Kit has the decency to look ashamed, and follows him out the door. 

They sit in the laundromat for ninety minutes until the guy shows up, flannel tied around his waist and big clunky boots scuffing the floor. Kit bounds over to him, pink tongue flopping, and the guy hugs her. 

“You little asshole,” he says. “Stop that. You’re gonna give me a heart attack.”

Liam is not touched by the way the guy tears up a little bit, or by the way Kit snuggles her nose into his neck. Not at all. He clears his throat, catching their attention.  
“You again,” the guy says. 

“Yeah, me again,” Liam returns. “Lock up your damn dog. You’re lucky she wasn’t run over, or shot, or worse. And why does she keep coming to my house. I don’t deserve this kind of torture.”

Laundromat Guy grins, eyes crinkling up, and Liam can actively feel himself staring like a goon. 

“She’s not that bad,” he says, smiling at Liam. “She might chew on shoes, yeah, but you just have to hide the shoes you actually like and put out decoys.”

“Well,” Liam says gruffly. “Make sure she doesn’t get out, okay? Wouldn’t want her getting hurt. That’s all.”

He turns, shoving his hands in his pockets, and is halfway out the door when the guy says, softly – “I’m Zayn, by the way.”  
“Liam,” he says, and leaves, like an idiot.

+++

It’s three in the morning, and Liam is wide awake. There’s this thumping noise coming from downstairs, and he’s pretty sure it’s the fridge, but the Alfred Hitchcock marathon that was on before bed is not helping his overactive imagination.

“Hey,” he yells, and the thumping stops for a second, then resumes.

Liam grabs the baseball bat he keeps under his bed – it’s a bad neighborhood, okay – and tiptoes down the stairs, keeping his back to the wall. Fuck, he should have grabbed a flashlight. 

It’s louder downstairs. It’s coming from the kitchen, he thinks. Now the thumping is coupled with an ungodly wheezing, high-pitched and tinny. 

He steps into the kitchen, bat high in the air, heart beating a mile a minute, ready to beat the shit out of whoever’s in his kitchen –  
And there’s a very familiar dog curled up under the oven, tail slapping against the fridge, snoring and drooling like there’s no tomorrow. 

“There’s not going to _be_ a tomorrow for you,” he gasps, clutching his chest. 

Kit opens one eye, decides nothing important is going on, and falls back asleep. 

“No,” Liam says. “I’m not dealing with this. This ends tomorrow.”

Kit seems to understand his frustration, because she stops whumping her tail, at least.

_+++_

Zayn is bent over a dryer, his slim butt in the air as he shoves armfuls of socks and tanks into the machine. Turning, he gives Liam and Kit a once-over. 

“Is that… dental floss?”

“I’m running out of shoelaces and drawstrings,” Liam says, handing Zayn the end of the floss. “Here’s your dog.”

“Look, man, I’m sorry,” Zayn says, scuffing his toe on the floor. “I hate locking her up. She’s a rescue dog. Her old owners were seriously fucked up, treated her badly. I’m sorry she’s over at yours so much. I’ll make sure it doesn’t happen again.”

“Where do you live, anyway?” Liam asks. 

Zayn grimaces. “Fernhill Apartments, not the greatest. I’m savin’ up for something better, a nice big yard for Kit here,” he says, nudging at Kit, where she’s laying half on Liam’s foot, half on Zayn. 

“Well,” Liam starts, and he knows he’s going to regret this. “I have a yard. I’m in debt up to my eyeballs because of the damn house, might as well make the most of it. You guys can come over, she can run around, we could make dinner? If you want. It’s okay if you don’t, I’ve been a dick—“

“We’d love to,” Zayn says firmly, grinning up at Liam. “Whenever. We’d love to.”

Liam’s a little dazed by all that is Zayn. “Good. Just follow Kit, she knows the way,” he says, giving the dog a scratch behind her ears. 

Zayn laughs, and Liam is a little bit in love.

+++

Kit’s sleeping on his porch, her head resting on a soggy shoe when Liam gets back from his morning run.

“Hey, you,” he says, tossing a dog biscuit her way. “Where’s your boy?”

Zayn’s rocking gently on his porch swing, a cautious smile on his face. “Hey, dog thief.”

“Did you really follow her here?” Liam asks, surprised.

“Maybe,” Zayn says deviously. “Maybe we looked you up. Either way, I remember you promising food?”

Kit looks intrigued at the mention of food. Liam laughs and leads them both inside, where Zayn makes him eggs and Kit eats her doggy-bacon proudly. 

 

“I guess that dog does have some redeeming qualities,” Liam says, after brunch.  
Zayn just grins and leans into him on the couch. 

Kit decides that Liam’s bed is now her bed three nights out of the week, and Zayn is at his door every morning, looking bashful. One Wednesday night, Kit is snoring in his ear again, and Liam can’t take it anymore. 

“Come get your dog,” Liam says, his voice gruff with sleep. “It’s like sleeping next to a buzzsaw. How do you do this?”

Zayn sounds equally as exhausted, but laughs. “I’ll come get her. Just a minute.”

Liam is almost back asleep when Zayn rings the doorbell. He doesn’t bother to throw a shirt on, and Zayn chokes a little when Liam answers the door. 

“Sorry, man. I’ll grab her and let you get back to sleep,” Zayn says.

“Or you could stay,” Liam suggests. 

They wake up the next morning with Kit between them, Liam with a mouthful of dog hair and drool all over his arm, but Zayn’s legs are wrapped around his and he doesn’t think he’s ever been happier.


End file.
